Ecco the Dolphin II: Guardians Revival
by aquaorca
Summary: When the Guardian loses it's power, and the Foe have plot to avenge thier queen, Ecco and new friends must collect powerful shards to revive it before time runs out. Will he be able to fight and solve the many mysteries of the oceans and save the Earth.
1. The Beginning

Aquamarine bay was a little quiet today. Nothing but birds chirping and the wind moving. The waves were slow and the sun was shining as bright as ever. It _was_ a peaceful day.

Not far off laid a tiny cave where two pairs of eyes of different colors stared at a circle of pillars in the middle of the bay. The sun shining it's bright light illuminated one of the creatures' head, which revealed many stars of different shapes and sizes in a shape of a constellation. This creature was indeed Ecco the dolphin, earths defender of the future.

"Okay, so on the count of three, we swim around the pillars, three times right?" said Ecco, turning towards the other creature who was another dolphin.

"Yep. But why bother? You can't beat me." Says the other dolphin gloating at Ecco with a big smirk.

"Oh really? We'll just see about that!" replies Ecco as he focuses on the count to race his friend. He drops his fins down and lowers his head, ready to make a charge to get a head start.

"Okay then" says the dolphin acting like Ecco was losing his cool and throwing a fit. "Ready"

"One"

"Two"

"Three!" the two dolphins said in unison as they both charged off towards the pillars in the middle of the bay. The other dolphin got to first pillar first and spun around it with Ecco chasing behind. As they made around the first lap, Ecco took a huge charge, and took the lead by his opponent.

"Your going to regret passing me Ecco!" says the dolphin as it began to accelerate faster than Ecco. He noticed this and tried to block, but only to have his opponent trick him out, and pass him leaving him in the dust. "Aw. Can Ecco beat a little girl dolphin like me? Yeah, fat chance!" gloats the female dolphin, but as she turns around on the final lap, she humiliatingly gets stuck in one of the pillar's holes, leaving Ecco to win the race.

"Gee Coral, did you gain weight or something?" laughs Ecco as he comes for her aid, only to be hissed and growled at by the sore and irritated loser.

"Just wait till I get my fins on you Ecco!" yells Coral as she tries to squirm out and trying to reach Ecco with her fins.

"Relax, I'll get you out. Just hold still." Instructs Ecco as he tries to tug Coral out of the hole. Sadly, he couldn't release her. "You won't budge. Sorry" he says with a confused look on his face.

"Great. Ecco defender of the future and his mighty strength can't pull out a poor innocent female out of a hole!" Coral says with a frustrated look in her eyes.

"Hey, those where exaggerations, and you know it! Just because I saved earth, doesn't mean I'm a titan or anything! Besides, the Guardian gave me that strength." Replied Ecco, but all he got was a dirty look.

"That was temporary." He adds on that gave Coral a disgusted and hopeless look, that lasted only a few seconds when she heard a familiar song. A whale's song!

"Big Blue?" questioned Coral as she looked at Ecco.

"No, its sounds like killer whale". Ecco said, which he was right about. He could hear it louder and louder, and he began to notice a shadow of the singing figure. "I wonder who it is that's coming?" He asks himself out loud. The figure swam closer and closer until the shadow finally cleared as the whale approached them with it's teeth showing and an ugly expression on it's face.

"Oh Delphinus! It's going to eat us!" gasped Coral as she panic ally tried to release herself from the rock. "Ecco! Save yourself!" she tells him, but as the brave soul he was, Ecco tried to pull her out with every strength he had, ignoring the sounds she made when she felt a slight pinch.

Finally the whale with it's mouth wide open and sharp teeth showing was only a bite away from killing them stopped moving, and began making a loud roar, but not an angry shark's roar, but a roar of exhaustion.

The whale finished, and closed its mouth with a big smile on its face.

"What's the matter Coral? Eating too much of the fish again?" the whale said, trying to hold his laughter from his own joke. Ecco burst laughing as it was a friend he was with while swimming back from Atlantis after defeating the Foe.

"Aqua you weight more than all the buildings in Atlantis combined!" Coral said trying to break his laugh, which made it worse, since it was a terrible comeback. The laughing was broke short, since it was time for an air break. Aqua swam over behind Coral and poking her with his head. "Aqua what are you doing?" Coral asked since she was getting annoyed from the poking.

"Would you like the head or the tail?" asked the killer whale, waiting for an answer from the stuck dolphin.

"Huh? Head I guess." Coral answered with a very confused look on her face, staring at Ecco.

"Okay, it's going to hurt quite a bit!" replied Aqua as he slowly backs up preparing for a massive charge at Coral's tail.

"What?!" screamed Coral as Aqua charged full speed at the rock aiming at her. _Slam! _The whale went as well as the rock pillar and Coral as she flew out of the water and painfully smacked into a rock wall above the bay. She slowly fell off the wall and landed back into the water, landing on something small.

"Ow" she moaned as Ecco and Aqua came to her aide, only to discover a large seahorse on her belly. It was purple and it was a male. It glowed like a glyph.

"Ugh, what happened?" said the seahorse moaning as well, looking at Ecco and Aqua who were giving the seahorse confused looks. "Those markings on you forehead…"

"Yes I'm Ecco defender of the blah blah blah. Nice to meet you… Uh, what's your name?" Ecco finished asking the glowing seahorse.

"I'm Shard. The Guardians messenger. I came here to, well you know, to tell you to come back right away, or something like that" said the seahorse who was acting careless.

"What's the problem?" asked Ecco who was concerned and giving the seahorse a serious look that scared the creature.

"Hay now! Don't get angry with me! It's not my fault I'm not good at acting like it's a tragedy, even though he told me it was!" the seahorse said hiding behind Coral.

"What kind of tragedy?" said Aqua moving Coral out of the way and frightening the messenger silly.

"Something about his power or dying, or something. Look I don't Remember okay! So don't eat me!" cried out Shard as he tried to swim away, but only to be in the fins of Ecco. Aqua and Coral stared blankly at each other, then at Ecco, who was thinking.

"You think something's wrong with the Guardian?" asked Aqua looking at him with a worried look on his face.

"Maybe. I don't know, but I better go and check and see what's the problem." Answers Ecco looking at the gate to Atlantis. He began swimming over to the gate ready to sing to open when he noticed he was being followed by his friends, who where giving him determined looks.

"We're coming to Ecco!" said Coral with a jealous look. "This could be an adventure that's we might all enjoy. You might need help and the company." She finshed.

"Yeah, and you might need some extra muscle from me." Continued the killer whale with the same look.

Ecco wanting to say no since whatever might happen could be too dangerous, backed down from saying it. Aqua was a powerhouse lone-swimmer who finally found some friends, and a place to stay for awhile. Coral can fight many sharks, since her father was the last podleader, and taught her how to fight and how to win mentally and physically.

"I can assure you it's dangerous, but I can't argue at what I learned from you guys. While we're going, let's stop by and say hello to Crush and Hammer near the Coral Reef" Ecco said, who was referring to the mature shark Crush, and his immature brother Hammer, the hammerhead, who surprisingly, liked dolphins, and befriended Ecco as well on the way back from Atlantis.

"Well okay, but if I get bitten by one of those weirdo's, it'll be your tail Ecco!" Coral said as they opened the door to the pathway to begin their quest back to Atlantis.

Far off from Earth a mighty armada of ships and large vessels surf outer space, destroying a nearby planet, burning it to kingdom come.

While the onslaught was going on, one of the fighters ship opened a hatch into the mothership. It was moving fast, like if it was in a hurry. As the fighter parked in it's spot in the docking bay the pilot quickly ejected out of the ship, and begin sprinting towards the command center of the mothership. The creature was too hard to describe as it was to fast to see.

The creature made it's way to the command center, which held a sign that read: _"Kings Office"_. He opened the door to reveal an extremely large creature that had to be sixty feet tall, with large claws that hold only three figures, and giant green eyes in the shape of tiger's. The "King" which the title near the door read, was watching the winning battle on multiple screens, with a large devilish grin on his face. This creature, this monster, was the powerful Foe king!

The other creature finally stopped running and was easier to describe. Although it wasn't what the king looked like, it was small and looked like snake, with a strange tube-like contraption sticking out of his mouth, which was used to talk, and can be used as a short-ranged weapon. This was a Foe spitter, but this one could move ten times faster.

"My-my lord! I have news on the battle of Earth!" the spitter announced to the King. The leader turned around and looked down at his minion.

"Hmm. What news must you bring to me? How is my Queen doing taking that weak jewel of a planet?" said the king talking as if the spitter was his friend.

"That's what I want to tell you about sir. We taken the planet by using our prototype vortex weapon you had your eyes on using." The spitter said starting to shake and becoming nervous.

"That's good news soldier. I knew that the vortex mechanism would make things easier." Replied the King, growing his grin even longer and thicker.

"Well until someone or something got in the way of things and…" the spitter stopped and worried to finish his sentence, feeling like he'll regret finishing.

"And what!" said the King who quickly became impatient and losing his long grin.

"… and destroyed the ship, and eventually…" the spitter stopped again, almost ready to scream in mercy of what was to happen next.

"EVENTUALLY WHAT?!?!" the King cried out at the scared spitter.

"Your Queen… was… killed" the spitter finished embracing of what was to happen next. The Foe king just stared at the spitter, and began making a strong and hardened fist. In anger, he thrust it against the largest screen, smashing the glass everywhere. He then screamed as loud as his vocal cords and lungs could carry the sound of the loss.

He finally calmed down, and looked at the spitter trying to think.

"How far is it to Earth from here? At the speed of warp five?" the spitter looked at the Foe king with a look of relief.

"About 8 earth months non-stop." Answered the spitter.

"Long drive. When we finish this planet…we attack…no…destroy Earth! We avenge the loss of our Queen and our best fighters!" the King said throwing his fist into the air.

"I Shall let the other commanders know about this sir. Oh and, thank you for not taking your anger out on me" said the spitter who began walking back to his ship.

"Just go." Replied the king turning his head to a window at the carnage.

"It will be a long quest to Earth. But when we arrive. They well all…suffer."

"Whoa!" says a human who woke up from his sleep. He had a nightmare of what will happen to Earth, and began to sweat and noticed a wet spot between his legs. He quickly got out of his bed and ran over to his dresser changing into his uniform, which was made up of green pants with a white undershirt, a gray tee-shirt, and a green army-jacket, which was all standard uniform for everyone.

Once he finished, he picked up some dog tags that read his name: _Corporal Erick Baron_. He finally got outside his room and headed left to which lead him to another room. "Intelligence Dorm" the sign read, and Baron went inside to see tens of hundreds of radios and computers. He quickly flipped on a computer and pushed a series of numbers, which surprisingly got him on a network of Foe ships and their orders. This was one of the methods used that helped the humans defeat the Foe the first time.

Baron scrolled up and down the endless list of orders, that where in a computer generated code that the humans cracked. Baron then discovered one particular code that was popping up everywhere. He clicked on the code that was encoded **Derth1807.des**.

What was just a code, was actually what Baron dreamed of. The order was the total destruction of Earth!

"I must let the lieutenant know about this!" thought Baron to himself as he tripped off the chair he was sitting on and headed his way to the Command Chamber.

The lieutenant was sitting with other members of his group of soldiers who were really just messing around, telling stories when they were on Earth.

"Hey Garret. Tell us the time you were in trouble for messing with your guns in public" asked a sergeant who was throwing paper airplanes at the door.

"For the last time sarge. I wasn't arrested for playing with my weapons, I was arrested for drinking in 'pub-lic.' Those idiots at the tavern threw me drunk into pub-lic." He just stared at the sergeant at the pointless and random joke until Baron opened the door, only to bump his head with airplanes from the careless sergeant.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" cried Baron tripping over the mess the soldiers were making of the room. The lieutenant who knew that Baron was always on the computers and radios had to go through another episode with him, even though he ordered him to rest in his quarters.

"Ah Baron. Good to see you. Had a good nap?" the lieutenant said sarcastically with a big smirk.

"Sir, I was manning a computer and looking at a list of Foe orders and…" Baron was immediately interrupted by his commander.

"You should be manning the bed and getting some rest corporal!" said the lieutenant with a nasty look on his face.

"This adds to that sir! The Foe has ordered a full scale destruction of Earth!" he handed the papers and documents of the code **Derth1807.des. **The commander looked at the papers and continued to grow more attracted to the documents that Baron made. He finished and looked at Baron.

"Baron, get HQ on screen now!" he ordered Baron to turn on the screen that displayed a list of generals. The lieutenant pushed on screen to the officer of General John J. Ruther, commander of the armed forces.

The computer displayed the image of general Ruther who was drinking coffee, that was spilled on his lap when being warned of an incoming call.

"WHAT IS IT CHARLES?!?!" screamed Ruther as he tried to hide his pain.

"I'm sending you the note on that topic now sir" replied the lieutenant as he placed the papers in a tube like machine. He pushed some numbers and then pushed send which quickly was received by Ruther. He examined the document, and quickly typed his orders for other commanders.

"Looks like we're in war again boys." Said the general fiddling with his hands. "Get your men, and call everyone to prepare to return to Earth."

"Yes sir. Sorry to disturb you sir." The screen turns off and the lieutenant faces his men. "well thanks to Baron here, well be making it back to Earth, the military at least. The Foe are returning to destroy it, since they're precious queen was killed in the invasion the second time. They will not go down quietly this time. This time, we finish this!"


	2. The Tunnel and the Newcomer

"Gee, how far is this tunnel Ecco?" said Coral beginning to get tired of the endless swimming.

"I don't know. I just went back through the waterfall Big Blue made. It can't be too much farther." Replied Ecco as he swam towards a plant shooting out air bubbles.

The tunnel was endless, nothing but drawings of dolphins praising at glyphs, humans building Atlantis, and many drawings of Delphinus. One picture of him with just one tail. Then another, more detailed picture of him with seven tails. He was a tad bigger than Ecco, but was more tinted blue, with a red streak mark around each tail. He also possessed the same markings as Ecco, which caught the attention of Coral.

"I wonder… nah. He can't be" said the dolphin a tad puzzled. Ecco and Aqua turned around to face her.

"Can't be what Coral?" said Ecco swimming towards her.

"Look at Delphinus. He has those same markings like you." answered the dolphin pointing her beak at the drawing. "I have a slight feeling he's related to you Ecco" said Coral trying to compare him to the mythological dolphin.

"Well Coral, I'm sorry to say, but we're not. Not even close. Some drawings have him with those markings, since he has his own constellation and all." said Ecco trying to explain the differences between the two dolphins.

As Aqua was listening to the two talking, he noticed a purple glow that was glowing brighter and brighter. He tried to swim towards it, but the light just stopped moving, and began to swim away. Aqua amused and determined to catch the glow darted after it, leaving Ecco and Coral alone, who surprisingly didn't even noticed him swimming away. As he was close to catch it, it made a right turn into a crack, causing him to bump his head.

"C'mon. I just want to see who or what you are." said Aqua calling to the trapped glow. He realized why the thing was swimming away in the first place. "no, I'm not going to eat you. Besides, I don't eat just one fish at a time." he continued.

"Well maybe you should, since your fat!" said the glow, that resembled a familiar voice.

"Shard? Is that you?" Aqua asked the glow, looking puzzled.

"No, it's Nemo! Of course it's me!" replied the large seahorse. He finally swam out to the whale with a smile. "Hey, you couldn't just leave me back there alone with all those hungry looking dolphins out there. Besides, I have a job to complete anyways." Shard concluded, as they went back to meet up with Ecco and Coral, who were looking for him.

"Hey guys! Look who decided to join us!" called out Aqua as the two dolphins came over to see their new friend. Shard wasn't afraid of any of the two, since he felt safe with Ecco.

"Where were you Shard? I thought you were coming with us." asked Ecco. Shard immediately answered.

"He I thought you knew the way, so I decided to take a load off at your home. It would've been great relaxing and eating your food until your friends got hungry. When they first saw me, they thought they were going to eat a seahorse smorgasbord." He tried and played it cool, but the other three just rolled their eyes and continued to the never-ending exit. Coral still impatient about the length of the swim swam over to Shard.

"You came through this way right Shard?" asked Coral who was hoping for an answer. Shard just shook his head, which made Coral disappointed and even more annoyed. She decided to speed up and as soon as she did this, she hit something in the middle of the tunnel. It was invisible, but when the other three caught up, Ecco shined Shards glow at the barrier, which revealed a large black door.

"I may have not came this way, but I do know what this door leads to…" said Shard as he was interrupted by the now-pleased Coral.

"The outside!" she squealed happily, and began to use the same song to open the door, which illuminated a massive bright light. It was true, it was the outside.

The foursome swam towards the exit and moved out to a large bay, which was crawling with sharks. They were all moving slowly, as they knew where they are. They wanted to stop by and say "hello" to Hammer and Crush the hammerhead brothers, in the Coral Reef. But this wasn't any reef. This was a dolphins adventure. The tunnel to Atlantis was actually a scenic route to which is known as…

The Perils of the Coral Reef!


	3. The Swim to Atlantis Ends

"No way! You have to be joking!?" said Ecco, confused at what their long swim through the tunnel have brought them.

"Some tunnel the Atlantians built." replied Aqua. "I guess they wanted to show off what the city of Atlantis was."

"Yeah, it was nice though. But now… we're going to die!! There's sharks everywhere!!" screamed Coral as she panicked.

"Calm down, all of you. I got this under control. There's an exit about…two or three miles from here." said Shard as the large seahorse began to lead the way to the exit. During the swim the foursome looked at the beautiful marine life. Everywhere they looked were large amounts of coral, that glittered and sprang tiny schools of fish.

Then they noticed many tiny eyes peeking out of indents in the walls. The foursome just smiled at the golden and ruby-like colors until all of them charged out at them swimming around them, swimming in glee, since they haven't seen anything but sharks and air bubbles.

Suddenly Shard lead the group into a large dead-end, which was fortunately inhabited by a dolphin.

"Well look who's back! The crazy one!" the dolphin called out to Ecco who he could easily remember. "so what's new to you shark fighter?"

"Uh… we're looking for some friends of mine, which is also the exit to Atlantis" replied Ecco, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Well, unless you wanna swim in caverns with no air bubbles, you might want to take this shortcut." The dolphin pointed out with his beak. "by the way, who's this with you?" he asked Ecco pointing at Coral.

"Just a friend. Along with the whale, and the seahorse." Replied Ecco as he tried to hide his blush with his fins.

"Kinda fat for a seahorse. And what's with glow on him?" questioned the dolphin who was making Coral impatient.

"Auug! Tell us we're the stupid shortcut is already!!" yelled Coral who was preparing to charge at the dolphin with a very nasty face.

"J-Ju-Just jump over this ledge, and you'll be near a pair of caves. T-Take the left one, and your exit and possibly your friends will be there." Answered the dolphin who finally gave in and passed out. Floating on the surface.

"Thank you." Replied Coral who calmed down in no time, then turned to the rest of the group. "see what happens when you get to the point? You get somewhere".

"Uh-huh" said Aqua who just rolled his eyes, and was the first to leap to the new area. Coral immediately followed, then Ecco who carried Shard gently in his mouth, ignoring the screams he was making while in midair.

"Next time I want to be thrown by fatty here okay?" said Shard who was referring to Aqua, who slowly swam back and took a huge bite of the water, enclosing Shard in his mouth. "Um-uh, you kind of missed your lunch and took me instead. How about letting me out?" Said Shard, but instead Aqua made an evil look on his face and began to suck the water in his mouth. "This is not funny Aqua! Let me out! Please!!" cried Shard, but the whale just sucked faster and finally had Shard on the edge of his tongue. "Oh, I didn't want to die like this!" murmured the seahorse as he fell down Aqua's throat.

A second after the swallow, Aqua released out a massive blow of water out of his blowhole. Shard Came out screaming to his mother, and landed safely into the fins of Ecco, who was chuckling.

"Had fun?" asked Ecco. Shard just spat out the water he swallowed wrong, and just shook his head.

"We're almost there! Finally." Said Coral excited to see the Guardian. They made it into a small bay with a pillar in the middle. Ecco was looking puzzled, figuring out what was familiar about the bay.

"Hey Ecco!!"

"Dude!" yelled two recognizable voices.

A regular coral shark and a hammerhead approached the group with grins on their faces. Ecco shook fins with the hammerhead, who you could guess is Hammer.

"So what's new Ecco?" asked the hammerhead.

"We're going to see what's wrong with the Guardian. Some sort of an emergency." Answered Ecco, as he was still thinking of what made this area so familiar to him.

"Gee, that's like, a bummer" replied Crush.

"Oh, stop with! You know that gets very annoying! You not twelve anymore! Got it?" yelled an irritated Hammer.

While the rest of the group went over to one side, Ecco same over close to the waterfall, pondering.

"I wish I knew what is so familiar here. Something happened." Said Ecco talking to himself.

The other side was quiet as well, since it was awkward for seeing sharks talk with other animals without striking. Aqua, looked around and remembered something about the bay.

"Hey, do you know about the glyph that was here? It was over there by that corner of the bay." asked the whale hoping to gibe some relief to Ecco.

"Yeah, it's over here." Answered Crush as quickly swam over and uncovered huge amounts of algae and seaweed to discover a diamond-shaped object. "give me fin here"

Aqua nodded and pulled out the glyph, which shook the rocks everywhere.

"It's just a tremble. It's nothing to worry about." said Aqua trying keep everything at ease. Coral a tad concerned about Ecco being alone turned around and noticed a pair of giant red eyes peeking out of the cave of the waterfall. Suddenly the eyes started moving and began to approach Ecco. A large mouth, bigger than Aqua's, and much more full of teeth was very close to bite him!

"Ecco! Behind you!!" screamed Coral as the giant creature came out, fully revealing what it was.

"Hello" said the beast, with a giant smirk.

Ecco wasn't afraid of this large creature, which was a great white. He remembered this one with no doubt. He fought this shark to grab the Power of Vigor power stone from his mouth. Then he defeated him with the power he was given. "so you came back. What for this time?" the shark asked.

"I came here to get back to Atlantis. There's a special entrance here that I could use to get there." Ecco looked at the bloodthirsty expression on the sharks face. He knew what that look was for. "please. I don't want to fight you. Not this time anyway." Ecco said trying to reach for his friends. But was blocked by the shark.

"Oh I get it. You can't trust me cause I'm a shark." The great white said, swimming around Ecco, and taking a massive bite near Ecco, who endured the move. The shark just laughed. "I know the gate to get in. The answer lies inside of my mouth. You want it…yes?" asked the shark. Ecco nodded, which then the shark moved right to his face, staring into his eyes. "We'll…fight for it then."

"Fine!" Ecco said, beginning to charge.

The shark dodge the attack, and begin swimming patiently ready to attack his prey. Ecco swam to the other side near the waterfall. He discovered something that was sticking out of the ground. He rubbed the sand of the lump and discovered a power of Vigor!

"Alright dolphin ditz! Time to show you how I improved from the last meeting we had!"

"We'll I improved too, and I also have…this!" Ecco pulls out the Vigor power from the ground and thrusts it into is body. He could feel the power of ten killer whales inside of him. He immediately charged at his foe, and this time with his speed increased, he rams right into the sharks skull, causing him to lose his vision and started losing consciousness.

"Fine you little cheat! Two could play at this game! Let's see what happens to you if I devour one of your friends!" said the shark aiming himself towards the frightened Coral.

"Leave her alone you creep!" yells Aqua as he pounds the gills of the shark, saving Coral.

"Where were you? I needed a little help over there." Asked Ecco upset to where was Aqua.

"I was seeing what was wrong with a glyph. We need to get there now! The Guardian is weakening!" replied Aqua.

"I'll finish this fight, it's almost over" said Ecco as he took one last hit at the shark's head, releasing a tiny stream of blood from his teeth, and another glyph-like object. The shark just moaned, and past out. "I thought he was much harder than last time."

"That's' because we kept bashing his head. You kept on hitting his stomach from the first time." Replied the killer whale. "anyways, lets see what this glyph does."

Ecco blasted this sonar at the glyph, and it was still active.

_Ecco! I'm glad I can hear your sonar again. There's not much time. My power is weakening, and there's a great streak of danger in our future. I've noticed you brought some of your most closest friends to help you on this journey. I do indeed sense great dangers where you be needed by stealth and strength. My power is growing more thin by the second. I will use my last bit of my power and open the gate. Before I create the gate, is their anyone else you would like to bring?_

Ecco looked at the two sharks. Hammer immediately swam forward with a big grin.

"I'll go Ecco, you could use my eyesight" Hammer said. Ecco just nodded, while Coral and Shard just laugh. Crush just stared at his friend and just smiled.

_Very well. The…gate will be…open………now._

The glyph fired a beautiful white light that revealed the city of Atlantis, and it was beginning to fade in color.

_Hurry! Power……fading…fast…_

It was flickering its color, and the gate was fading.

"I believe the old gem wants us to go. Like… right now!" said the impatient seahorse. They swam as fast as they could into the gate. Ecco, and the rest of his friends soon disappeared into the gate. The power of the glyph died down, and the gate disappeared. Crush stared at glyph with a sad look, knowing what could happen to his friends.

"Good luck dudes."


	4. The Quest and New Powers

The exit was thinning fast. Ecco and friends charged as fast as they could, and at the last second the five-some were thrown out of the gate, dizzy and exhausted.

"I thought we would never make it out of there" said Coral swimming towards the surface gasping and inhaling the air.

"Yeah. I haven't swam that fast since I was learning about stealth from my father." the tired orca said, sucking the life out of a plant that was giving off air bubbles.

"At least I don't need air since I have gills" Hammer said feeling proud about himself.

"Uh-huh. Well at least the some of us can see straight." Shard said making fun of the way the eyes of the hammerhead are.

"What do you mean 'can see straight'? I can see just find." Hammer replied, but he humiliates himself by bumping into a rock pillar. Aqua finished sucking his air out of the now-dead plant, and swam further out of the bay.

"I'm going to scout around and see what's up. I'll sing to you if I find something" he said and swam off ahead of the group. The foursome swam around and looked at the wonders of Atlantis. First, they swam over to the tiny cave where Ecco found a crystal from his last adventure. Coral noticed that the inside of the cave was covered with a drawing of Ecco and the Guardian. The picture showed Ecco with a large simile, and the Guardian with a massive bright glow. Suddenly a familiar voice appeared.

"You like it Ecco. This is the place where I could draw all my pictures of you, and whales, and everyone!" said the dolphin, who was female.

"You did a nice job Shauza. When and how did you learn to draw?" asked Ecco.

"I found some strange colorful stick things about a mile from here. They last a long time! There was also a dolphin picture in some rubbery thing, so I used that to draw. Cool isn't it?" said the green dolphin, who quickly swam inside, and then quickly swam back out with red on her fins. "I found this dye in a ship not to far off from where I found the sticks." She continued. "now I could…"

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of an orca. It sounded like trouble near.

"That must be Aqua! He must have saw something!" Hammer exclaimed, and the foursome, including Shauza swam to the sound of the screeching whale.

The made it shortly to the killer whale with a terrified look on his face. His mouth was dropped a little.

"Aqua what's wrong? What did you see?" asked Ecco frantically. Aqua pointed one of his fins out and replied,

"The-The Guardian." He whispered. Everyone looked up and saw the massive crystal blinking rapidly.

"My eyes! They're hurting!" screamed Shauza, covering her eyes with her fins. Hammer and Ecco looked at Shard who knew most about the crystal and gave him worried looks.

"I don't know what's wrong with the old timer okay!" he yelled at them, which left everyone wondering. Finally the Guardian's flashing light show stopped and was starting to fade in color. Already it's rainbow transparent body began turning black like a half-dead light bulb. Immediately Ecco fired a sonar blast at the large gem. Nothing. He tried again, and this time, the Guardian spoke.

_Ecco! You made it! Incase your wondering my dear friend, I'm in the most terrible situation._

"What's wrong? What's happening to you?" questioned the dolphin.

_Two things. The first and the worst, the Foe are returning to Earth!_

Everyone gasped. Again? Wasn't going through the pain and misery of the future of dolphin and mankind and fighting a giant disturbing creature bad enough as it was?

"How? I thought they retreated?"

_Ecco. You only defeated them in the alternate universe where the Foe rule the Earth, and all creatures left on this planet were killed. I don't know what happened, but I do believe they're here in this solar system. The good news is, you managed to destroy their new weapon. The vortex cruiser._

Ecco and company were still confused by all this.

"It still doesn't make sense to us." Ecco replied.

_You saved Earth by destroying the ship and restoring me. Time didn't change here after what you did. The past remained the same, but the future didn't._

"Now that makes sense. Now what's wrong with you." Ecco replied. The Guardian took a moment to answer his question.

_Your not going to like it but… it appears my time has run out. I'm dying Ecco. My power is running out. _

"You can't be! Not now!" cried Aqua feeling frustrated about the situation.

_Yes I know. There is hope though._

"How Guardian? Please tell us before it's to late" asked Ecco with a tear draining out of his eye.

_When I pass on. There will be a crystal that will revive me to a low power state. _

It's entire figure turned dark. The Guardian moaned a few last words.

_Then… I'll tell you… about the rest…_

It finally went dark. Everyone began dripping tears, lowering their heads in sorrow. Shard swam over to the front of the group and huffed, but no one turned to attention to the seahorse. Ecco who was the only one listening about the crystal swam back to the front of the crowed, and fired a loud sonar to the mourners.

"If you were listening guys, he said there was a crystal that bring him back. So let's find it people!" Shard ordered. Everyone scattered to find it. Aqua looked in the trenches. Coral looked in Shauza's cave. Hammer looked in the museums, and Ecco and Shauza looked in the locations of the crystals from the last restoration.

Shard, the only one not looking noticed a lump near the Guardian. He gently dusted off the lump and saw a blue transparent crystal about his size. He felt a tad happy over his mellow self, and began dusting the crystal further off.

"Guys. You might want a look at this." Shard called to the group. Aqua the first to come over noticed the crystal. His eyes widened open and quickly jerked the crystal out of the floor.

"This has to be it! Shard that laziness of yours might be useful after all." Joked the killer whale as he carried the crystal towards the dead Guardian. Hammer coming out of the large museum saw the two carrying the crystal and yelled to everyone else. Ecco, Shauza, and Coral quickly swam back to the Guardian and watched as Aqua spat the gem into it.

A massive blue light flashed before them, and the Guardian lighted up a blinding white glow.

"It's beautiful" said the two female dolphins.

The light faded, and the Guardian revived from it's death shined a new light blue transparent color.

_I knew you could find it here somewhere. Now back to business… Ah yes. I may be back and glowing again, which will last a thousand years, and the guarantee of the safety of our home and more will happen if you fully revive me to my powerful state._

"What do we have to do?" asked Coral feeling confident about the task they must do.

_In order to revive me to my full state you must bring me…_

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh" Coral said getting ready to go.

_Two-hundred revive shards, and twenty-five power crystals._

Coral jaw-dropped in disappointment and dropped her fins. Ecco tried to calm her down, but only to get pushed away. She started to shake, and screamed as high pitched as she could, hurting everyone's ears, and cracking the Ecco statue.

"Guardian, where are these shards and crystals? And why so many?" Ecco asked beginning to lose his patience as well.

_Their everywhere on this planet Ecco. Some are here in the Isles of Tranquility; some are in the Sea of Japan, the Gulf of Mexico, and even in the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. Some are probably being held by creatures that many haven't seen for years! I was given this power in a large amount. And…_

"…that's why we need to give you so many. Got that. Now, how are we going to fight these myth monsters if charging at them won't work? And how are we going to get to those oceans, especially the Mediterranean?!" questioned Shard as he too was losing his patience.

_Once you bring me enough shards and crystals I can be able to create portals out of newly built glyphs! Now you won't have to swim so much or carry a huge load. But I'm weak to produce one at the moment, so bare with me. I sense plenty to open one right here in the Isles themselves! Now… Ecco, will you swim forward and poke your beak on me? I have something to help you with that first question._

Ecco swam to the Guardian and took a tiny poke with his beak. The tiny light that the Guardian and the base of it fired a purple beam at Ecco, causing him to endure. The stars on his forehead shined as bright as stars themselves. Finally the beam stopped and Ecco felt a rush of strength in his head.

_Do you remember your old friend the Asterite? The one who gave you a beam of power out of your stars?_

"Of course I do. I wish he didn't die. He could've given us a little more hope." Replied Ecco feeling sad that he still misses the one who help save his pod mates and time itself.

_That power I gave you is just like that. Except it's not as powerful and more nicer looking than his. It's still very useful._

"Thank you Guardian. This new power brings me back." He turned around and noticed that everyone was falling asleep. "I think we should all turn in and rest and begin our adventure tomorrow. Wouldn't you agree Shard?" Ecco asked turning to his seahorse friend. Shard just nodded, and swam over to wake everyone up.

"We're starting our little scavenger hunt tomorrow. Let's get some rest." He yelled at everyone waking them up. Coral charged over and bumped him on the Guardian.

"You should have just left us alone and sleepy. Right, Aqua? Hammer?" she turned to the two who were still half-asleep. They both yawned and went back to sleep on the surface on the beach. She just huffed and swam with Shauza to sleep near an empty coral reef on the beach.

"Enjoy your rest guys." Ecco whispered to everyone who were already asleep.


	5. Soccer beatdown

"Wakey wakey Ecco! Today's the first day of crystal catching. C'mon wake up!" Coral said as she tried to wake up Ecco. She poked her beak at him, but he just rolled over and moaned.

"Agh. Five more minutes." moaned the dolphin as he squirmed away from her. Coral was getting impatient, and wanted to travel.

"You leave me no choice Ecco." She said carelessly as she swam to the surface and took a massive breath of air. She swam back to Ecco and began aiming her beak at his head. Coral released out all the air she gathered and turned it into a loud high-pitched screech. Ecco immediately woke up and jumped far out of the water, passing the height of the Guardian and touching a near-by seagull. Ecco could feel the breeze blow by, and was interrupted by getting hit by a flock of the seagulls. He immediately fell back down and splashed into the bay near Coral who was smiling at Ecco's experience. She swam towards him and was ready for another screech. "still asleep?" she asked with her eyes half-closed, and with an evil grin on her face.

"I'm awake! I'm awake! No more screeches!" he screamed. Coral nodded and the two swam towards the rest of the group near a tiny indent. Aqua was happy to see Ecco awake.

"Had a nice night sleep, buddy?" he said with a grin, since he knew what Coral was going to do to Ecco if he overslept.

"Yeah, I had this dream. You and a bunch of other whales like yourself were singing some song that was quite catchy." Replied Ecco as he swam up to the killer whale. Aqua just chuckled while Shauza swam up in front of the small group.

"I saw something glowing near a large round thing on the other side of this indent. A bunch of dolphins are playing a game, and boy one won't stop yelling about getting focused. I think your first ones there." She said. Everyone nodded and at one at a time each adventure swam through the indent, and began the longest adventure in Ecco's history.

The little tunnel was short, and Ecco was the first to come out after blasting the sealed exit open with his new beam. Hammer swam out next and was interested about the new and beautiful ray of light out of Ecco's forehead.

"Hey Ecco. What would you call that beam you just used?" asked the hammerhead, hoping for something neat.

"I don't know. I never thought of naming it. What do you think it should be called?" replied the dolphin puzzled about the beam he is now equipped with.

"Guess."

"Ray of light?"

"Nah."

"Crystal beam?"

Hammer just stuck out his red tongue and spitted air and bubbles from his mouth.

"I got it. How about… Guardian beam?" Ecco was beginning to get frustrated about the name of his new attack.

"Suites me." Replied the shark as the rest of the group swam out of the tunnel. Ecco turned around and noticed that someone was missing.

"Hey. Where's Shard and Shauza?" asked Ecco feeling a tad concerned for their selfish, yet helpful friend. Aqua immediately opened his mouth revealing a wide-eyed seahorse in a fetal like position. Shard slowly swam out of the whales mouth and turned furiously at the him. He tried to say something, but turned away with an angry expression. Coral swam over to Ecco explaining the missing dolphin.

"We got him since he can sense the presence of, and Shauza wanted to help by asking any passerby's about anything that looks like what the Guardian mentioned."

"Makes sense. Now where's that…" Ecco noticed a large structure overhead a wall. He swam to the near-surface and saw a huge rock and metal construction in a shape of an oval. "a boat. That must be where Shauza found those color sticks." He thought to himself. He then noticed a few dolphins bouncing a brown ball and passing it to other dolphins, then one of them took a shot at a bunch of rocks in a shape of an arch. The ball missed, and one of the dolphins went crazy yelling at the bunch. Ecco ignored the angry dolphin, and saw a glow form behind the small crowed, which was the very first crystal.

Ecco whistled to his friends and swam towards the sunken ship. Finally he found the entrance to the ship and swam inside and to meet with the other dolphins who were still being yelled at by the same dolphin, who was wearing a silver like instrument. Ecco swam towards a common dolphin who was watching some of the dolphins try to block a pass to a dolphin from one side to the other. Both groups had to be made up altogether of ten dolphins, excluding the common dolphin, and the one Ecco wanted to meet. The rest of the gang was right behind him. "Excuse me. What's going on here." asked Ecco to the common dolphin, who sighed heavily after a miss block from one of the players.

"We'll if you haven't noticed we missed seven passes in a row to our fresh recruits. I just about had it. Nothing will get us going to block those passes." he faced Ecco and the gang and raised one of his brows. "Ever played soccer son?" Ecco nodded and so did Coral and Aqua. "hmm. Can you do me a favor? Can you block those two recruits for me? I quit asking for them to do some defense." The three just stood there and nodded. They swam and took over three positions. The player began swimming the ball left and then right, bouncing it with his beak. Coral swam over and guarded the dolphin with her entire body, blocking his view. He desperately banged the ball hard at his teammate, which then the player smashed his beak at the goal, which then Aqua charges at the ball which sailed down the area. Ecco with his speed out swam the two players and bounced his way into the empty net. The dolphin coach smiled, and the yelling coached turned around at what he saw. He turned back with a big simile and said, "Now that's what I call being Focused!"

"Not bad son. Not bad. Uh, run that drill again." ordered the coach. The players tried a different play, but this time Coral tail whacked the ball down the field. Again the players were out swam, and this time she scored. The other players were enjoying what they were seeing.

"Kill guys! Kill!" screamed Hammer as he was enjoying the humiliation of the other players.

"Okay were done here today. Call it up and get some sleep. Big day tomorrow." Said the coach. The players now tired swam away from the sunken ship. Ecco and gang moved towards the crystal, but was stopped short from the coach that Ecco ran into.

"Nice moves you guys. We're did you learn to play like that?" asked the coach with a smile.

"We we're just bored, sir. And we wanted that crystal that you have here. It's very important that we have it." Replied Aqua as he was being padded on his skull by the coach.

"Swimmeyer. Finny Swimmeyer. Coached the best soccer team in the sea for twelve tides." He pointed his beak at the crystal. "that's our good luck charm. Since we had it, we won five championships. That was our first award from my first year. Team hasn't been the same after the fifth. I really don't need it, since it brought some bad memories after winning it."

He turned to Ecco and Aqua with a tiny tear from his eyes. "This is the first time our guys actually played tough against someone. Their now pumped up for tomorrow, and as for my gratitude, I want you to have it." He grabbed the crystal with his fins and gave it to Aqua who placed the crystal in his mouth.

"Thank you coach. This really means much to us." Replied Hammer. Shard swam up forward to the group.

"Okay. We got our crystal now lets go. There happy, we're happy, we're done. So lets go chop-chop" the coach stared at the seahorse with a very intimidating glare which made Shard's heart pound.

"You know if you were one of my players, I make you swim five miles right"

"Gee look at the time, I think I hear the Guardian calling." And the seahorse swam off as fast as the wind. The rest of the gang laughed and began swimming back to Atlantis.

"That was fun wasn't guys?" asked Ecco feeling happy about the collection of their first crystal.

"Yeah. We pummeled the tailfins of those guys for two straight hours!" replied Coral as she opened Aqua's mouth and grabbed the crystal from his mouth and darted to the Guardian tossing the gem into it. The Guardian glowed a light white color and reactivated to it's blue state.

_Pretty easy wasn't it? But eventually that will get harder as you progress. Remember, there are holders that will fight for the obtainment of the crystals. Right now I sense one somewhere near a small group of sharks. This shouldn't be to hard. Good luck._

The Guardian turned off again. Aqua looked at everyone with a determined grin on his face.

"Let's go whack some shark tailfin!"


	6. The Gate and the Goldmine

"Wait! Don't leave yet!" yelled a familiar voice from the distance.

"Hey it's Shauza! She must have found something." said Aqua intrigued about what Shauza discovered.

The dolphin swam forward to the group. She panted, trying to catch her breath since she was swimming as fast as she could. She tried talking even though she was tired.

"Huff… I found…someone…who could…help…" she was beginning to faint, but another voice relieved her so she could swim to the surface to catch her breath.

"Sorry I took so long Shauza. I'm getting old you know." Appeared another dolphin who was blue on the top portion of his body, with a gold stripe, like a common dolphins'. He had green eyes that glittered. "hello everybody. I'm honored to meet you all. You see, I'm Shauza's father, Kitel. You can call me Kit."

"Nice to meet you Kit. I'm Ecco, and this is Aqua, the whale, Coral, Hammer, and the glowy seahorse is Shard." Replied Ecco. "so your daughter said you could help? How?"

"Well for starters I'm the head engineer for the Atlantian Defense group. We're the ones who research new ways to make the ocean world exciting, and more protective for our planet and keeping the Guardian running." Replied Kit. Shard just rolled his eyes and became careless.

"You did a good job on the Guardian part." said the seahorse sarcastically. Kit was silent for a moment and replied from the remark.

"Well I'm sure you already know about the crystals we use to power it up. We ran out for it's yearly feeding decades ago. It was also the worst time to run out, since the Guardian was losing power rapidly after a tremor in Atlantis a hundred years ago. Then I heard a famous dolphin and his friends found a crystal as a quest from the Guardian, and I thought I swim over to help you out."

"You still didn't answer Ecco's question. How could you help us? We got everything planed out." Said Coral.

"Yeah. Besides Kit, after finding enough crystals, the Guardian will create a glyph to transport us and…" Aqua was interrupted by Kitel who had a better answer.

"…and he would lose a mass amount of his power on one transport glyph. You see I'm working on a program that'll send you to anywhere in the ocean world, without using most of the Guardian's power. It's in progress, and entering its final stages of development. We only need to use a power glyph the Guardian can create that'll serve as the programs batteries. How many crystals have you collected?" asked the common dolphin.

"Sadly…one. We're on our way to collect another from a group of sharks near a cave in a nearby reef." Answered Ecco ready to go. Kit thought for second and began making a small grin out of his teeth.

"There's more than one. I used to swim in there to steal a crystal when we're low. Those sharks are jewel hunters."

"Looks like this adventure just got easier!" Coral said with a simile of joy. Hammer felt upset even though he's for the crystal hunt.

"Who said sharks are easy? There could be tens of sharks swimming in there." Replied the hammerhead.

"He does have point. We could be totally outnumbered in number and strength." Said Aqua feeling concerned about what lies ahead. Kit just shook his head with his grin growing bigger. He chuckled a little.

"There's only one shark. He's young and has a strange choice of words. I think Hammer might know him very well." Hammer just looked at the dolphin with a strange look. He realized the only other shark he hung out with was… "I think I might know the name. Lets see… Smash? No… Bam? Nah-uh…Crash?" Hammer immediately answered Kit's problem.

"Crush?" he answered. Kit's eyes opened wide.

"That's right… Crush! I remember seeing you sleeping near the cave, while Crush took crystals and putted them in the cave." Everyone else looked at Hammer concerned that he didn't tell them about Crush's stash. Coral immediately charged at the shark and wrapped her fins on his throat.

"You idiot! Why didn't tell us about them!? We could've had a head start!! Aaaagghhh!!!" she began trying to choke him harder, but she couldn't go any further. Aqua charged over to break up the fight. He had them separated, but Coral was still reaching her fins at the dazed sharks head.

"Coral! He didn't know about Crush's hobby. I'm sure he'll hand over his collection for the sake of earth. Got that!?!" Aqua yelled at Coral staring into her eyes, making her calm down. She just swam away from the two and mumbled. Ecco swam in front of the group and clicked as loud as he could. He got everybody's attention.

"I think we should pay our buddy a visit at his cave. Let's hurry. It's almost getting dark." The group nodded and turned towards their next path which leads them to the bay which is were the cave is located.

The path was wide, and the bay was filed with coral. Many glittered. Many spat air bubbles. Most of them were filled with fish, which made everyone's mouth water. They were all surgeon fish. They were as blue as sapphires. Shard swam in the way of their "new" direction and smiled at the hungry group.

"Let's grab the loot and then we eat." Aqua looked upset since he was in charge of carrying the crystals in his mouth.

"But how will I eat? How am I supposed to eat fish if I have more than one crystal in my mouth?" he had a hunch of what Shard was about to say. He decided to let him speak first.

"Like you need to eat." Aqua just rolled his eyes and carried on swimming into the cave with the rest of the group.

The cave inside was dark jet-black and the lighting of many glowing fish which brightened the cave. Ecco noticed a large green glow not far off from where they were. He charged forward after to light which became bigger as he sped faster. He was anxious of his discovery.

Finally he found his light. Nine crystals were laying there, glowing as bright as the sun itself, and its color as beautiful as an emerald. As soon as he took out a crystal a voice appeared.

"Dude Ecco! What are you doing here? What are you doing with my gems? You weren't gonna take them?" Crush swam out of the darkness with a glow from a couple of glow fish. Ecco felt bad for taking his friends hard earned collection, even though there were more jewels and gems glittering around him. The power crystals were nice, but the others were nicer. Aqua and Coral were the next behind Ecco who gasped as they were caught for the theft.

"Listen Crush… buddy. We got the emergency at Atlantis under control. You see these gems are power-ups for the Guardian. I'm sure you could spare us these crystals. It's not like you don't have any at all."

Crush picked one up and began stroking it like a kitten.

"It took me three days to find this one. And a week for that one." He furiously turned around at the three angry. "You can't have them! I worked day and night to find them!" he yelled at them like total strangers. He almost sounded like he cared for the crystal than his friendship.

"Crush if we don't collect them and give them to the Guardian, earth will be in great danger! No more friends…no more fish…no more, uh… no more…" Aqua tried to convince Crush desperately with his begging, which caught very little concern. Coral thought a greater way to convince him with the best idea.

"No more gems to collect in the ocean" she said. She grabbed one of the nicer pieces of his collection and shook it in front of his face in a mocking way. Crush panicked and gave in.

"Alright. Alright! Man you guys are tough to ignore." Crush said handing over a crystal and putting it into Aqua's mouth. He held one fin to his face trying to not look at what he's doing.

"Sorry we barged in, since caves don't have doors." Ecco said.

"As long it's for a good cause. Right? Ya know, you could've asked." Said the reef shark sighing as he calmed down to his normal tone again.

"Mew smeed it!" Aqua said trying to speak with nine crystals in his mouth.

"C'mon guys lets go. Shauza and Kit are waiting for us. Let's hurry before Aqua gags on one." Said Ecco as the rest swam away from the exit. Crush swam out as we'll disappearing from sight and screamed,

"If I find more of these crystals I'll let you know!"

Now 10 crystals have been found. Still, they have a long way to go before hope comes into full effect. There's still many left in the seas of Tranquility.


	7. The Fight Against the Kraken

"It's got boring around here hasn't it?" asked the female dolphin looking at Ecco. He just nodded in agreement. They have been waiting to find out where the next power crystal lies. So far they have found nothing for four days.

In the distance a silhouette of a large creature approaches the two wondering dolphins. They turned around at the sounds it was making. It was Aqua who was trying to catch up to them.

"What is it Aqua? What you did find?" asked Ecco feeling a tad anxious of what the whale had to say. The orca immediately opened his mouth which revealed a green power glyph. This was different than the others Ecco had found and used from his last adventure. "what power is this?" he asked. Aqua lightly coughed up the glyph and gave it to Ecco, in which he held it with his fins.

"It's a little gift of thanks from the Guardian. It said that this a different type of beam you could use for up coming fights." The orca looked at him with a smile. Ecco looked at glyph and gazed at the beautiful green glow it was releasing. He could feel power coming out of it. He looked at the two and opened a grin.

"Let's see what this glyph can do." He quickly thrusts it to his beak and the glyph immediately disappeared. Nothing seemed to happen.

"Try shooting at something. I want to see it!" said Coral trying to hold excitement.

Ecco fired a long, purple beam that was no different than the one he received earlier. The three lost their hope, and become disappointed.

"What gives?" Ecco said firing another shot in frustration.

"Did I mention that this was-ACK!" Aqua was cut short from answering Ecco's question when Ecco accidentally fired barrage of quick green beams at him. The beams damaged a cluster of rocks which fell right on top of the whale.

"Oops. That wasn't on purpose." Ecco quickly said, charging over to the pile of rocks that covered Aqua. "you okay Aqua!?" he called the whale. There was only some moaning, but Ecco heard Aqua reply back.

"I'm okay. Sort of." The whale rose out of the pile and shook of any dust that was on him. "Ow. This. Ow. Power is. Ugh. Permanent." The whale looked better after blowing air bubbles out of his blowhole which was blocked by pebbles.

"Hopefully we'll get to see more of that." Coral said. The threesome began swimming back to Atlantis, but where stopped short as Kit swam right into the orca's face. The common dolphin was breathing desperately and was almost ready to pass out.

"I…gem…found…Aqua…fath…" was all they could barely understand. They carried him back to Atlantis where Shauza and Hammer where waiting for them. They had worried looks on their faces.

"What happened? What's going on?" asked Ecco.

"My dad found a crystal in a large cave a underneath here. So he brought one of his friends to help him carry it back." Answered Shauza.

"Then what?"

"When they got there, a massive long creature grabbed the crystal and then attacked his friend."

"Did he mention what it was?"

"No he swam off to get help, to rescue his whale friend. He wanted to meet Aqua." The whale interrupted the conversation with his eyes wide open.

"Me? What for?" he asked.

"I don't know, but he really wanted to see you. Heck, he looks like you, only older."

"So he's a killer whale like me?" the green dolphin nodded.

"C'mon lets go rescue him! Hey where's Shard?" the large seahorse popped out of nowhere, glowing rapidly. "What's wrong with you?"

"Another crystal is nearby, duh!" the sarcastic seahorse said rolling his tiny eyes.

"Wooooo spooky!" said Coral as they entered the cave. It was only lighted up the cave's middle. The light seemed to got bigger, along with a strange moaning sound that was nearby.

"It's the ghost of Davey Jones!" screamed Coral as she scared Hammer who screamed at a very high pitched sound. Aqua quickly turned around and stared frustrated at the two.

"Do you want to wined up like him?" he asked with a whisper. Both gulped and nodded. "good. Besides, that story is as old as the Guar…" the whale was halted by a rumble of rocks that moved and a dark figure appeared. The whale's eyes widened in fear while Ecco turned around and charged up his beam. The creature moaned again and began swimming towards the scared group. Ecco's beam became fully charged and was being used as a light to shine on the creature. Aqua, Coral, and Hammer slowly stopped being afraid when they noticed that the creature was another orca, who was about around being middle age.

"Finally some help as arrived. I'm getting to old for this job." Said the whale.

"Who are you?" asked Aqua swimming to pull the rest of the whale out.

"It's been long since I last saw you. You groan so much. I guess you forgot. The names Greyson. And the only person I know here is Aqua." Aqua quickly opened his eyes wider again that the whale knows his name.

"Wait. Are you saying that you know Aqua?" asked Hammer.

"Of course! I'm his father!" Greyson replied with a big cheerful smile on his face. Aqua smiled back and the two butted heads in joy. Aqua felt a tear from his eyes. "Seven long years really can change a whale, huh? We'll introductions can wait, I already know the light spewing dolphin. Will you please turn down that light!" the whale ordered. Ecco fired the beam at a strange limb looking object that ended up letting out a loud roar.

_AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!_

"What in…" Greyson yelled. A wall of rocks exploded from the middle of the cave and a large metallic creature appeared with a very unpleasant expression.

"Wh-What is that thing?" asked Coral.

"It looks like an octopus, but bigger." Answered Aqua. Greyson gulped at the creature and his heart began pounding rapidly.

"No. It can't be." He said. Shard looked at the creature as well and with the power of the Guardian inside of him glowing his eyes, he revealed what it was.

"Th-The mighty Kraken!" he screamed. As soon as he finished, the Kraken threw one of his tentacles at Coral. She barley dodged the attack.

"There's no time guys! It has the crystal! After it!" Ecco screamed. The monster destroys another wall which began sucking air and everything around it.

"In through there!" Greyson ordered. They all charged into the water vortex.

"This isn't going to be good!" Coral screamed as the group finally caught up with the Kraken.

_I know what you want! You want this stupid crystal that bad to kill me huh? Well prepare to die!!!_

"We have no other choice. Attack Ecco!" Aqua yelled. Ecco charged in front of the Kraken in range to fire his new beam. He fired a barrage of shots that only where deflected when hit.

_Your shots have no effect on me. I am protected by armor! Now say hello to your ancestors for me!_

The Kraken threw half of his tentacles at Ecco, only missing him by inches. He tried again with his other half which smacked him, but didn't do much pain.

The Kraken stopped his quick fighting and widened his eyes that turned red.

_AAAgh! Weak armor! I have rest every time I move! _

"Ecco. His eyes! There his weak spot!" Greyson yelled. Ecco nodded and charged his shot and fired, but missed by feet. "Ecco. Don't. Waste. A single. Shot. You have time to aim. Now do it!" he ordered.

Ecco charged up his beam again and aimed way lower from his other shots. He fired and made a direct hit. Right at the Kraken's pupils.

_AAAAAAAHHH! My armor! It's coming off! I can't see with all this scrap!_

"Let me handle this part!" Aqua called out. He charged forward at the beast and slammed his extremely thick skull at the loose armor. He whacked three more times violently, and chomped on the remaining piece of metal.

_Foolish whale! Now you make me use this!_

The Kraken fired a large blinding light that came out of his mouth, which struck Aqua, sending him away with a tiny trail of blood.

"Aqua!!" Ecco and Greyson screamed in unison.

Ecco's rage began growing at a high velocity. He felt mass pressure near his stars.

"If he dies…you'll pay" he said to himself. His anger began growing more stronger, but he didn't lose focus from the fight.

_Looks like I made things interesting._

Again the Kraken, now exposed, threw his tentacles at Ecco, but instead of dodging, he fires the purple beam , damaging the tentacles. All four fell off the monster, and began spewing light from where they came from.

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! Feel my power that Poseidon has given me!_

A large multicolored light began being created from the Krakens mouth, which began sucking everything in it's path.

"And feel the power of the Guardian!!!" screamed a familiar voice.

"Aqua?" asked Coral as the silhouette of a whale revealed Aqua carrying five different crystals in his mouth.

"Is that all the Powers the Guardian has created?" Ecco wondered as the whale injected the Powers into his body. The results where a massive bright turquoise glow that blinded everybody. Finally an even more blinded explosion of light threw everybody out of the cave.

"Aqua!" they all called for. There was no reply. Ecco swam towards Greyson who just stared at the cave with a tear from his eyes.

"Greyson. I'm sorry if Aqua didn't make it. He was the best friend I could have. Along with everyone else." Ecco could feel a chill through his spine, and felt like someone was touching him, even breathing on him.

"Who says I didn't make it?" said a voice.

"Aq-Aqua?" called Hammer. Everyone felt nervous and frightened. Ecco began charging his beam again with any remaining strength he had left after being blown almost to kingdom come.

"BOO!" screamed the voice. Ecco sped off towards the surface panicking. The voice was starting to transform into a visible creature. It was laughing very hard, and carried a glowing object from it's mouth.

Ecco swam back down to see if the voice was still there, but when he got there, the whale was fully visible.

"Aqua. You-your alive!?" exclaimed Greyson who charged at Aqua rubbing his head with his.

"Of course dad. After all those fighting practices we did don't cha think I could live to take out a weakened octopus?" Aqua said to his father in a sarcastic tone.

"I guess your right. You are truly a sight to believe." Greyson then turned to Ecco. "and you are a gifted singer."

"Thanks Greyson"

"Yeah. Thanks dad." Coral swam to the threesome with a confused look on her face.

"Wait. What about the crystal?" she asked. Aqua spitted out a small red crystal that glowed brightly.

"Well I'll be harpooned! That's not any regular power crystal. That crystal is five times the strength of a regular one!" exclaimed Greyson as he examined their treasure.

"We should be heading back." Ecco recommended. Everyone nodded. Greyson swam to Ecco with a grin on his face.

"The Defense is the other way. Kit's probably worried sick about me." Ecco smiled and everyone swam off except Aqua.

"Aqua…" Greyson called.

"Yes dad?" Aqua replied.

"I'm proud to have given life to a…gifted son. I'm…proud of you." He said with a smile.

"Thanks dad." Said Aqua as he began catching up to the rest.

"And if you don't behave Aqua…I'll tail-whack your hide!"

Aqua just smiled. They have a long journey, and what they did today was only the beginning of the greatest moments of their lives. Still, there's more crystals to collect, and they can't wait to use gate that Kit is working on to make things easier. He imagined what their up against, but he knew, that this will be all worth it.


	8. New Powers and Entrance

"Congratulations everybody! The Guardian was able to produce a battery-like glyph for our gate program. Now where ready to ship you to your next location." Said Kit feeling triumphant.

"That's terrific! Now we can collect the next line of crystals. Just open it up and send us through!" said Ecco preparing to leave Atlantis. Kit swam in front of him blocking his way to the exit.

"Wait Ecco! You can't leave let!" he said. Greyson appeared behind Ecco as he was overhearing the conversation.

"He has point." Aqua swam in front of the two elders and stared at them with confusion.

"Why not pop?" he asked. Greyson looked at the two and thought for a moment.

"There are creatures only the villagers know of. The place the gate is taking you is more dangerous than anywhere here."

"What do mean more dangerous? What's more dangerous than the Kraken?" asked Aqua.

"Creatures known as dragons lie deep in caves. They make things harder for you since they could fly." He replied. Greyson opened his mouth which revealed light-blue glyphs that glowed brightly. Kit swam up to them and held one with his fins.

"This is a future made, Guardian created, permanent Power glyph. Known to future dolphins call it, the Power of Skyriding!" he handed one to Ecco. Coral squeezed between Aqua and Ecco to view the new power-up. She gazed at the glyphs with a twinkle in her eyes. She then looked at Kitel and Greyson with a confused look, since there was more than one of them in Greyson's mouth.

"Are these for all of us?" she asked them. The two just chuckled at the female dolphin and smiled.

"Of course Coral! Why shouldn't Ecco have all the fun?" Kit replied.

"Sweet!" Aqua replied. He immediately grabbed his from Kitel's fins, and held in his mouth with a large grin.

"Where or who did you get these from." Asked Hammer who picked up his.

"Well, I found this machine underneath some pillars near the city's plaza, and found a hole that lead to it. When I went through the thing, I discovered a different version of dolphin! They flew the sky's, had long fins, and a long dorsal one as well." Kit answered. Ecco looked at him trying to make sense of what he said. He was beginning to think of someone when he mentioned the anatomy of the new species of dolphin.

"Go on Kit." Said Ecco.

"Then I saw help from this female who resembled Ecco somehow. I told her the situation and she quickly handed me these. Eventually she dragged me back here, since she mentioned 'maybe he's here'. Boy I wonder who the lucky devil is?" Ecco thought for a moment and opened his eyes.

_Can it be? It couldn't. _He thought in his mind.

"ECCO! It's you!" screamed a female voice.

A blue blur was all Ecco and company could see as he was immediately hugged by a tad larger dolphin. She had long fins and a long dorsal as well. On top of that, she had a large star on her forehead.

"Trellia! I can't believe it's you! How have been?" Ecco said as played around her.

"I've been dieing to see you again. I just had to visit!" she replied.

Aqua swam near the two, and butted in with a grin on his face.

"So Ecco. Who's this?" he asked sarcastically. Ecco stopped playing with Trellia and looked at the whale.

"If your thinking what I think your thinking, forget it. She's my descendent from the future." Ecco replied after he rolled his eyes.

"Oh so that means you will find that special someone!" Hammer added with a little chuckle. Ecco sighed and nodded. Kit whistled at the large group which got everyone's attention.

"Now that you can fly, are you ready to go?" he asked.

"DUH!!" the entire group yelled at the common dolphin. He sighed with a grin and pointed his beak up.

"Go up to the sky high above the Guardian. It's a large metal ring that is floating." Ecco and company nodded and began shape-shifting into a Trellia-like form.

"I never thought I'd be flying over Atlantis!" Coral exclaimed. Trellia followed the female the dolphin laughing with joy.

"Looks like you got the hang of it easily!" she said. Coral just nodded and charged off to the large green and blue metal ring hovering above the Guardian. Aqua, Hammer, the now present Shard, Trellia and Ecco met up with her after everyone finished doing barrel rolls and dives in the sky.

_Are you ready for your destination? _Asked Greyson through a speaker.

"Of course!" yelled Aqua hovering on his back.

_Alright then. I'll let our announcer and our crew do the rest!_

After a few loud blasts of clicking a new voice appeared on the speaker.

_Zenith ring now expanding._

Immediately the large ring began breaking into three different pieces. They where far enough to let a blue whale in no problem.

_Expansion complete. Main re-block disengaged. _

The pieces loosened up from their tight position and became more loose and free.

_Complete! All blocks are floating confirmed._

"Why are you coming Trellia?" asked Ecco. Trellia just shook her head and replied,

"And miss out on an adventure of a lifetime? It's boring at my bay since you left!" she smiled. Aqua and Ecco chuckled, waiting for the progress to continue.

_No anomalies_ _detected._

"Man. This-is-getting boring!" said Shard getting impatient.

"Shhh! This is the good part!" whispered Hammer.

_Commencing energy exposure._

The rings began sucking energy into three small blocks. It was a bright purple color.

_Expanding gate lens._

The light was slowly shot out of the blocks and began moving towards the center. They finally connected and the entire circle was covered with purple light.

_Gate creation successful. _

"Cool" said Coral as she began swimming towards the gate.

"Charge!" yelled Aqua as he charged pass Coral and disappeared into the gate.

"I'm flying! Ha Ha!" exclaimed the hammerhead as he vanished with Coral into the gate as well.

"Race you in Ecco!" challenged Trellia.

"Your on!" he replied. They both charged in and disappeared.

"Hey no fair! Wait for me!" Shard yelled as he slowly swam into the portal and disappeared.

_Japanese Gate connection successful. De-activating Atlantiain entrance._

"You'll think they'll find them all in Japan? With all those dragons?" asked Kitel to Greyson.

"After what I saw from them, they have a huge chance!" he replied.

"Hm-hm. Hungry?"


	9. War Begins

One light year from Earth, a massive battle was underway. Two sides of different colors were firing endless barrages of rockets and laser fire. The war between the Foe and humans has begun.

"You Foe butchers! We finally have caught up to you. It seems we have the upper hand!" says a human soldier firing his blaster at a battleship.

"Fight! Fight! Show these humans that we're the ultimate species!" replied a Foe commander.

A platoon of human cruisers began forming a straight line near the front.

"All available units! Into V formation! Break through their center lines!" ordered a human officer. The line of ships squared up with each other facing the a Foe fleet. They charged in the lines, destroying endless fighters along the way. 

"The humanoid forces are breaking through our lines! They're everywhere! AAAHHH!!!" screamed a Foe spitter. His ship burned and blew into a cinder.

"Arg! So you all think your tough eh? Take this!" said another commander. He fires an endless stream of rockets severely damaging most of the front-line human cruisers.

"Delta! This is Mohawk! We need support! I repeat! Need support! They brought in unknown reinforcements!" screamed a human soldier.

_Warning! Small scale group approaching at high speeds._ Said a computer.

Three white motherships, where coming near the battle, only ten minutes to reach the front.

"What the? Oh! Command! 101st have arrived!" exclaimed a human officer.

On the SS Atlantis briefing room…

"When do want us?" asked Lt. Robinson. The door behind him opened, and another officer was on his screen.

"Not yet. Prep your platoon. I'll get back you." Said the old officer as the screen goes black. The lieutenant turns around to see five other soldiers that look like they just came after a fight.

"Sorry to ruin your vacation men" the lieutenant said doing the "quoting-finger" sign. One of the five soldiers spoke up.

"Uh-hmm!" said the soldier.

"Oh, and women" said the lieutenant, coughing on purpose.

"Well at least we get to see what the Foe brought us this time." Said another soldier.

"I can't believe the Foe got those monkeys from Lylat. And we we're just killing them too." Said another. The lieutenant put his hand up to quiet down the chatter.

"As may know, the Foe are planning to take three important areas to obtain weapons and strategies to capture our planet." He turns around, looking at the fight which was drawing closer. He pulls a drawer open and picks up a pile of files. He moves them around and picks one up. "their first target, is Remlia. A civilization of creatures of dragons, mutated forms of lizards, and powers that are amazing beyond what the Foe possess." He picks up another file.

"Lylat. A system of planets inhabited by mostly mutated versions of dogs and monkeys. Criminals are the top reason it's inhabitable, to start a life as a fighter there. So far, the Foe already made alliances with a rebellion of those fiends already." He concluded with his last file.

"Pokimus. A very habitable and a brilliant civilization there. Creatures that would come out of a person's fantasy live and breathe. The Foe want those for their personal pets and warriors." He pulled them away and placed them back in the drawer. He turns around, facing them and cuffed his hands behind his back.

"These people are counting on us to defend or save them from harm. Don't disappoint them. Baron! Docking bay! Let's go!" he ordered Baron as he stumbled and followed him.

"I can't believe they want custody of those planets." Sighed the blue-haired female soldier. A brown haired soldier putted his hand on her back.

"No problem for them. They have excellent defenses." He said trying to cheer her up. Another male soldier walked in front of him concerned.

"For how long?" the others just shrugged.

"It just bites that they want our vacation spots!" said the last one near the door.

Suddenly the door opens up with an old man walking in. The soldier falls on the floor, while everyone laughs.

"Oops, sorry Collins." He tips his glasses to him. And sits on the commander's seat in the room. He turns the chair around and faces them. "Afternoon sergeant Kira Reynolds. Sergeant Allan Thomson. Private Christian Walker, and Private J.J. Ford. Hey I got names right!" said the old man.

"Good for you Major." Said Ford sarcastically.

"Your CO briefed you?" asked the Major.

"Yes sir, Major Cunningham." Replied Thomson.

"Just Major. Ready to roll?" he asked the squad with grin.

"Yeah, always!" replied Collins in a bragging tone.

"Then get prepped and go!" he ordered in a triumphant tone.

The docking bay was empty of people, but full on running white and black colored fighters. A mechanic was fixing a scratch on one of the five docked ships.

"How she running Kent?" Thomson asked. The mechanic nodded with a smile. Thomson buckled himself in the cockpit and began flipping switches. Kira, JJ, Erick, Christian and Damien boarded their fighters as well. The engines began running and a flame bolted out of the rear of the ship.

"Check Navigation and A-T systems." Thomson ordered. Five green lights appeared with name, rank, picture, and condition of ship appeared to Thomson's left. "All systems go!"

_The Foe and their allies are no pushovers. Watch yourself._ Said the Cunningham as he leaned his chair back and waited a moment later.

_Ready? _The Major asked. Everyone either gulped or began to sweat drop.

_Launch all ships! ATTACK! _

The ships are forced out of the bay at mach-1 speed and are released into space.

"Yeehaw!" yelled JJ.

"There's the battle! Time to kill some spitters!" exclaimed Kira.

"Charge! Rock and roll." Ordered Allan. All six ships were then boosted towards the battle.

The six ships arrive in time. Kira, JJ, and Christian flew left while Allan, Erick, and Damien headed right.

"Hey scumbags! Eat this!" screams Damien as he chases after a fighter. He successfully shoots it down, but gets chased by three more.

"Damien don't be careless! You have three bogey's on your tail." Kira said on her radio. As she says this, Damien takes a few hits n his fighter.

"Spit! Get off me!" he curses at them. JJ follows him and provides relief for him. He holds his fire and launches a massive blast at his enemy. They all explode giving Damien a chance of breathe.

"I owe you for that." He said.

Baron looked at radar and spotted twelve fighters coming ahead of them.

"Enemy platoon 80 meters!" he yelled in his radio. He tried firing his laser at the swam, but they weren't destroying all of them.

"Fire your missiles! The blasts are devastating!" Allan ordered. Baron barrel rolls and fires a black and red missile at the remaining platoon. The explosion left nothing but metal and fire in the area.

"Nice shooting!" complimented Christian. He noticed that a strange object on each of the battleships in their middle. He immediately fires a few quick shots at the bluish area. The damage was critical, and the ship busted in half, spewing fire and electric charges.

"Fantastic Christian! You found their weak point!" said Kira feeling ecstatic.

"Attention all fighters. Attention. We discovered weak-point of battleships. Repeat, discovered weak-point of battleships. Aim for the middle and belly area. Over" Allan reported to the squad. A second squad was approaching to relieve them.

"Have a bomb you cowards!" screamed one of the soldiers.

"Hey Foe! Catch this!" said a another in a more loud-psychotic tone. Both the bombs destroyed a large number of ships and another battleship. But they became the Foe's prey and where shot down, burning endless until they exploded.

"Comman….AAAACCK!" one screamed as his ship explodes.

"Allan. I detected three motherships approaching!" Erick exclaimed. Indeed he was right. Three black motherships where approaching at slow speeds, attacking any of the fighters the humans had that broke through.

"Our final defense has been breached!" said a spitter panicking.

"Let us handle this!" said a commander. "all three of us will squish their hides!" the three ships stop their speed and opened numerous holes in their hulls. Out came endless stream of fighters and gatling guns.

"Ah ha ha ha! Die!" laughed the commander. The six fighters evaded their enemy's line of fire and stormed at the single vessels at high velocity.

"And now you die!" said Allan to himself as he fires a charged beam at the ship. As it was close to impact, a large laser destroyed the beam at the last second.

"Hope you don't mind if I brought some friends!" the commander yelled. The other two ships became more visible and began launching more fighters and lasers.

"So this is the human army? I'm going to blow you away!" yelled one of the rebellious leaders.

"I'm afraid I can't let you win this fight. Let's see what you got." Said the other commander.

"Dang! I can't find a way in!" said Christian as he is being pursued by a large number of foe ships. "I'm on my own"

"Kira! JJ! Cover me!" yelled Allan. Kira and JJ were able to get out of harms way and follow Allan and pick of any of the fighters attacking him. He went for the first on the right. But he was unable to get a good shot of his missiles from the numerous protection of the Foe surrounding the ship.

"We might have to fall back!" recommended Damien. Allan just shook his head. There wasn't much hope to fight off all of these unless…

_Incoming massive fleet of unknown forces. High speeds._

"Forward comrades! Kill!" yelled a Russian-accented soldier. Behind him was an infinite stream of fighters and cruisers firing over and over. Everyone could here the screams of getting pumped could be heard from far away.

"Command! The Red Force has flanked the Foe's front lines!" Baron shouted through his radio, but there was no reply.

"That's their distraction! Hit them hard now!" ordered Kira. The six fighters lined up and charged at the three exposed motherships.

"No matter. I'm still going to crush you!" the spitter yelled.

"You can't if we did this!" JJ, Damien, and Allan fired six missiles at the ship's middle area. The entire body was on fire.

"No!!!" he said in his loud monotone. "Can't move! This can't be happening!" the spitter screamed as the ship began taking hits from the Red Force's army. The vessel began exploding with quick burst.

"My King! I have failed you!" he yelled again and the ship exploded like an atomic bomb going off.

"I underestimated you." Said the other spitter sarcastically. He begins to get blown up by streams of laser fire by human reinforcements. "Aaaahhhgggg! If this does not work!" the spitter fires a cannon that homes lasers. It hits a wide range of Red Force fighters destroying them.

"Again! V formation and attack!" screams Damien. The missiles damage the ship, electrical charges bloom out. Fire began spewing out of the rear of the ship. Allan U-turns back and fires his last missile at the ship. This time it was enough to blow it up.

"I can't believe I lost to this scum!" said the spitter. The ship blown to another large red circle of fire as the last ship began turning around and speeding out of harms way.

"If you have missiles, Come with me!" Allan ordered. Kira and Christian followed with only a few missiles left altogether. They had a slight advantage in speed at this moment.

"Ready? Box 2 and Box 4!" Allan yells. Kira and Christian fired theirs, which destroyed the ships hull and engines. Fire and large quick bursts of explosions came out of the rear.

"Ah ha ha ha! It that all you fools got?" said the spitter laughing. "Now one has ever beaten me! I lead this army to win every planet we fought for! I'm the heir to this civilization!" he continued, unable to fire any weapons or move. "Behold the new leader of the Foe! Slinter The-AAACCGGGHH!!!!!" a massive explosion destroys most of his ship with him left.

With a huge bump on his head he looks from his screen the three fighters still there. Kira flies near the window and targets her last shot.

"Good-bye." She says quickly, and fires destroying the rest of what's left of the ship.

"Uncle!!!!!!!!!!!" he screamed in terror. And disappeared of the remaining garbage floating.

The threesome U-turned around and noticed more ships approaching them. This time, allies.

"Well done comrade! The destruction of those three spared many lives." Said the Russian-accented officer. "C'mon, I'll escort you back." Kira, Allan, and Christian nodded and sped off.


	10. Music City in The Sea of Japan!

A dark and grim bay was only visible of the Sea of Japan. The seaweed was black and began to crisp, and no one was in site. Nothing but air bubbles and algae.

Not far off from the gloomy bay, three red lights began to blink as three black and white third-circles began to break apart. They unscrewed themselves, and began storing energy, which created a red circle surrounding the parts. Finally, the red circle begins moving towards the middle, and covers the entire inside. There, six shadows became noticeable through the strange portal. At last the figures of Ecco and company appeared.

"That was a lot longer than I thought." said Aqua shrinking back to his normal self.

"Well, we did travel half the way around the world." Replied Ecco as he shrunk himself to normal as well. Trellia and Coral appeared as well as Shard and Hammer.

"It was so awesome going through there! I loved the scenery." said the ecstatic Coral.

"Yeah, but it felt like going through a drainpipe." replied Shard who felt the need to throw up.

While everyone was trying to return to normal, Aqua and Ecco swam ahead to see any sign of life or any signs of crystals. They found neither and became disappointed.

"It looked like someone blew this place up year's ago." said the killer whale looking concerned. Ecco just nodded and sighed.

"Let's just head back and start tomorrow. I can barley see anythi…" Smack! Ecco hits a flat metal object which left a small bruise on his beak. Aqua swam towards the now disgruntled dolphin and searched for the object that he hit.

"Ecco what was that?" asked Trellia along with Coral behind her.

"I bumped into something hollow. Dang it hurts!" he said rubbing his beak with his fins. Coral also looked around near Aqua and discovered something hard and metal-like. It was a tad rusty, and had a reddish bar in the middle.

"Hey. What's this here?" she asked Aqua.

"I can't see anymore. Do whatever you need to." He said to the female dolphin. She opened her mouth and grabbed the bar and pulled it down. A loud screech occurred, and a massive blast of neon lights blasted right in front of the group, blinding them.

"AAH! My eyes!" screamed Trellia.

"Turn around if you really want to keep your vision!" yelled Ecco. Everyone covered their eyes and faced the opposite of the blinding lights. The lights just got stronger, but more harder to ignore, almost putting the group into a trance.

"Hey Tang! Someone found the power switch!" screamed a voice from behind them.

"I'm right here Wang. You don't need to up your tone!" said the other voice in an upset sarcastic voice. "heyyyyy… we found our hero's!" the voice went on. Ecco and Hammer turned around with their fins still clinging to their eyes.

"Not to worry friend! You'll get used to it. It isn't that bright." said Wang grinning. Hammer looked at Wang and noticed he was a spinner with an orange hardhat on his forehead. The same with the Tang.

"Okay open your eyes! Take a look at the view and music!" said Tang pointing his beak at the beautiful neon city.

"Music!" said Coral and Aqua in unison. They immediately charged, ignoring the blinding lights. The rest charged after them and noticed the beauty of this place. Music _could _be heard everywhere! The towering rocks where homes of baby whales, dolphins and even smiling sharks. This place was almost heaven compared to what Kit and Greyson explained. Suddenly a song caught the attention of the group and began moving their heads to the beat.

"_We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll. _

_Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll."_

"How is this music possible?" asked Ecco to Tang.

"Oh some parts fell out of the sky and…" Ecco already knew the answer and nodded his head violently with a large grin.

"_Say you don't know me, or recognize my face  
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place  
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight  
Too many runaways eating up the night."_

They continued to see more structures of other creatures playing, and more lights being built. Even a screen was being built on each structure! It turned on and focused on Ecco and Coral. The two just blushed in embarrassment.

"I never been on a monitor like that before! I could live here forever!" she said full of excitement.

"_Marconi plays La Bamba,  
Listen to the radio -  
Don't you remember?  
We built this city,  
We built this city on rock an' roll!"_

"We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll  
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll"

"_Someone always playing corporation games  
Who cares - they're always changing corporation names  
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage  
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page"_

"Marconi plays La Bamba,  
Listen to the radio -  
Don't you remember?  
We built this city,  
We built this city on rock an' roll!"

"We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll  
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll"

"It's just another Sunday, in a tired old street  
Police have got the choke hold, oh, but we just lost the beat"

Aqua swam near Wang and began asking him numerous questions. Wang answered every one without getting a tad upset.

"Where did you get the music? The Monitors? The lights!?" he said frantically. Wang just adjusted his hardhat and looked at the whale pleasantly.

"We found a strange human machine with the labels 'Best Buy' and 'Home Depot'. All that junk was found in these hard brown cubes in this endless stream of ships. Your place could use some." Said the spinner with a larger smile.

"Hmm. We would like that!" said the whale looking at Ecco. He nodded and smiled as well.

"_Who counts the money underneath the bar  
Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars  
Don't tell us you need us, 'cause we're the simple fools  
Looking for America, crawling through your schools"_

"(I'm looking out over that Golden Gate bridge  
Out on another gorgeous sunny Saturday, I'm seeing that bumper-to-bumper traffic)"

"Don't you remember? (remember)"

"(Here's your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city  
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)"

"Marconi plays La Bamba,  
Listen to the radio -  
Don't you remember?  
We built this city,  
We built this city on rock an' roll"

"We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll  
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll"

"We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll  
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll"

Coral noticed a wooden plank standing up near a fixed monitor. It had a picture of a jewel in the center and a grey and black stick around it. Wang peeked around her and spooked her.

"Ah! Your interested in the Music of Light competition huh? Your good at singing girl?" asked the spinner. Coral shook her head and pointed her beak at Aqua. "Ah! So the big one has the voice. Take him up to the Music Clam tomorrow night and don't forget to have a song to bring!"

"What's the prize Wang? It looks like a crystal." Coral asks.

"It's a crystal alright. With a magical feeling inside of it. It's worth winning it." Replied the spinner. "now if you'll excuse me, I have some repair work on some lights." He smiled and swam off. Coral quickly swam to her friends and panted trying to tell Ecco about what she just learned.

"Looks like you went and fun. What's up?" Ecco asked. Coral pointed at Aqua and smiled. "You want Aqua, Coral? What for?" he asked again. She caught her breath and spoke.

"There's this contest tomorrow night, and Aqua is perfect for it!" she replied.

"What? Sumo?" joked Shard. Aqua tail flicked the seahorse and gave her an anxious look.

"What's the contest?" he asked.

"Singing!" she squealed for joy. Aqua gasped at her and sighed.

"You know it takes me a week to memorize a song Coral! And right now I haven't got one on me." He said. Coral swam in front of the whale and grabbed him with her fins.

"But you don't understand. It's a Guardian crystal!" the crowd gasped and looked at Aqua with grins on their faces.

"We'll I can find one. But I'll need some background singers though" he quickly turned to Ecco and Hammer who gulped at his grin. "Your both perfect." Ecco got in front of the whale's face.

"We don't even know what song your dealing with."

"Have one already!" he quickly opened his mouth which revealed two square machines attached with a wire which leads to a place where the sound comes from. "Listen to these all night, and you'll memorize them, trust me!" he said with a triumphant smile.

"This better work!" Hammer said.

The next night at the Music Clam….

"Contestants four right?" asked a common dolphin talking to the threesome. Aqua, Ecco and Hammer nodded. "Have any background music you wish to play?" he asked. Ecco softly handed over a square machine and swam on. "YOUR NEXT ON STAGE!!" he yelled.

The three looked at each other with determined looks.

"Ready?" Aqua asked the other two.

"Actually, we've been excited since we started listening to that stuff. It rocks!" Ecco said with an ecstatic expression.

"Into your positions guys!" Aqua swam in the middle of the velvety stage while Hammer and Ecco swam between the fake light-spewing pearl. Suddenly black sticks popped up from under them.

"Hey what are these?" Asked Hammer. Aqua turned his head a little.

"You sing in them." He turned his head back at the enclosed clamshell.

"_And now our final contestants! The Guardians!"_

The shell opened up and Aqua's music began to play.

Aqua opened his mouth after thirteen seconds of music went off.

"_Now that she's back in the atmosphere  
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey" _

"_She acts like summer and walks like rain  
Reminds me that there's time to change, hey, hey"_

"_Since the return from her stay on the moon  
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey" _

"_Tell me did you sail across the sun  
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded  
And that heaven is overrated"_

"Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star  
One without a permanent scar  
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there"

The music got more upbeat and a tempo formed. Hammer and Ecco twirled during Aqua's singing.

"_Now that she's back from that soul vacation  
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey  
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo  
Reminds me that there's room to grow, hey, hey"_

"_Now that she's back in the atmosphere  
I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane  
Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land"_

Ecco and Hammer began singing "oohs" and "aahs".

"_Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet  
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day  
And head back to the Milky Way  
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind  
Was it everything you wanted to find  
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there" _

"_Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken  
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong  
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation  
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me" _

"_Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet  
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day  
And head back toward the Milky Way"_

Ecco and Hammer swam quickly to Aqua near his position and sang their last parts.

"_Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah" _

"_Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day"_

"_Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah" _

"_Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star_

_Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star"_

"_Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah" _

"_And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?"_

The crowd of five thousand screamed of joy at Aqua's performance. The threesome bowed their heads, and then patted their whale friend on the back.

"_Looks like we have a winner!"_

"I wonder what the rest of the gang thought of it." Hammer asked Ecco. Aqua pointed at the front row and noticed Trellia, Coral, and even Shard jaw dropped with their eyes wide open.

"Me thinks, they liked it Hammer." Ecco says chuckling as they wave their fins at the loud audience.

Next day…

"Dang my throat hurts!" screeched Aqua holding his throat with his fins and sticking his red tongue out.

"Well, we'll let you rest for awhile, all that pressure, and publicity and sore throat and…"

"Very funny. Ow. Ecco. I'm not missing out on my part!" Aqua said with a determined look on his face. Ecco just shrugged.

"We'll set out for those dragons in two days!"


	11. First Encounter and a Trip

It's been two days since Ecco and company discovered the futuristic civilization of the Sea of Japan. But they were more interested in Aqua's singing than the constant blinding light that damages their eyes. Again, boredom has struck them.

It was night. The city just recently suffered a temporary power-surge, and the only light source was the bright moon. Over near a tiny reef of pink coral, Ecco and Coral stare at the moon, pondering about what lies ahead of them. The moon illuminated Ecco's stars, shining like diamonds on display.

"You know, I thought this place was going to be dangerous. There isn't a cave or an indent anywhere. Do they even know about the dragons?" the female dolphin mumbled showing her white underbelly.

"I thought you wanted this to be fast and easy." Said Ecco. Coral just chuckled and sucked air from the surface.

"Well I did. But then I wanted more of a challenge. Even some excitement!" she said with a smile. Ecco faced her with a grin.

"Your starting to act like me when I started doing stuff like this."

"How so?" Coral asked with a brow raised.

"When I began my journey from Vortex to Foe things where pleasant and easy. When I received my own powers, I wanted to do things no dolphin could do. With or without them." He looked up at the moon with his eyes closed and a large smile showing. "I…I wanted to be like my oldest-grandfather. He used to be a brave pod-leader who fought mythological beings! Or so said my grandparents."

"I think your already as great as him. Just try not to get killed by going over your head." Coral replied. Ecco nodded and the two stared at the moon. Tonight was something special about it. Every part of the moon was in full detail, from the tiniest crater to the large pools of marina's on the moon. There was even long black do that was almost getting bigger as time goes by. Suddenly explosions come from behind the two.

"Whoa! Look at that!" squealed Coral. She was dazzled by the colors of the endless stream of explosions. Ecco stared them two with his eyes and mouth open.

"What are they?" he asked to himself. Coral began to blush.

"Whatever they are, they're making tonight romantic." She replied. Ecco also blushed with a thick shade of red. The conversation changed when they heard a loud screech from behind.

"Now what?!" Ecco exclaimed he turned and noticed the short black dot was now the meters away from them, and it was slightly larger in length than Aqua. The moon showed the creatures reflection. It had blue wings, and so was everything else on it's body. It had a medium sized nose that had sharp teeth, which surprisingly where clean white. On it's neck was three red crystals. Each where carved in the same with a familiar symbol on them. The two dolphins gasped.

"No. It has three of them!" Coral realized that the creature was darting straight towards them. Its arms and claw-filled hands stretching out. The two dived out of harms way. Immediately Ecco and Coral shifted into their Trellian forms and charged out of the waters surface. The creature did not attack them, but stayed where it was at.

"So this is a dragon." Ecco said to himself. Coral gulped in fear.

"It looks tough. But we gotta get those crystals!" she mentioned trying to get out of her state. The dragon huffed.

"For starters I'm not an 'it'! I'm a 'she'!" the blue dragon yelled in anger. "By the way…the names Kameira! This turf is mine!" Coral rolled her red eyes and charged after the dragon. The creature miss-dodged Coral's attack, which struck her left wing.

"Hey…A weak spot! She's all yours Ecco!" she hollered. She waved one her fins and dived back into the water. "I'll get Aqua and Hammer! They have to see this!" she swam off. Ecco sighed.

_You could've done more than that, but who cares? More fun for me! _

"Sucker!" screamed Coral as she appeared again at Kameira's behind, and tail-whacked her head.

"That's it! I'm done fooling around!" The blue dragon fired a blast of green fire at Coral, but was intercepted by Ecco diving in front of the fire.

"Ecco! No!" she screamed. She immediately felt rage in side her. She only knew Ecco for a couple of months, but although an immature tomboy she is, she felt close and loved him as a friend. She screeched at a high tone and gave the dragon an evil expression.

"I'm gonna make you lose real good! You'll pay for that!" she charged at the beats head on.

"Bring it!" said the dragon. She began firing bursts of flames at the Coral, but she skillfully barrel rolled each wave. She was close enough to bash her with her skull but instead dived right under the female's belly and chomped on her wing mercifully. It actually made the dragon weak and began wobbling in the air. Kameira was so much in pain that Coral stole the Guardian gemmed necklace on her neck. She dived bombed back underwater and noticed Ecco eating a fish.

"Ecco! Your alive!" she squealed and poked him with a smile.

"Please don't yell. My head kinda hurts." He noticed the necklace Coral had around her middle of the female's body. It shined brightly. "Coral did you?!" he gasped. The female nodded and Ecco jaw-dropped, which was attached with a smile.

The two were interrupted by the blue dragon's claw trying to reach for them. Ecco fired his Stealth beam and severely damaged the dragons hand. The two swam out of the surface and stared down at the dragon, panting heavily, ready to faint.

"C'mon! How could you lose to us?" mocked Coral at the dragon. But she fired a massive goldenrod beam between the two, and then flew close to them again.

"Coral…let's finish this!" Ecco triumphantly. Coral nodded and charged again creating a distraction for Ecco to attack. He charged as well and fired mercifully at the other wing and the dragons belly with his Stealth ability. The dragon fell into the water unconscious floating with major wounds on her.

"Is she…" Coral asked Ecco. He flew closer and noticed the dragon still breathing. He shook his beak.

"She'll probably want revenge, so lets get out of here." The female dolphin nodded and shifted back to their normal selves.

Back at the bay…

"Dang! I wish I was there." Complained the hammerhead. Ecco lightly shook his beak.

"I don't think you wanted to be there in the beginning." He said putting a fin on his head. Wang swam between Trellia and Aqua and then faced Coral.

"Is she the one that defeated the dragon?" asked the spinner. Ecco nodded and the spinner pulls a crown of flowers out of his hardhat. "We honor you with this as our thanks." Coral bows her head and Wang places the crown on her head, circling her blowhole. She blushed.

"What's this for? It was nothing really." Said the embarrassed dolphin. Tang appeared behind Coral startling her. "Will you stop sneaking up on us like that!?" she became her irritated self again.

"We'll get right to the point." Said the spinner. "Have you been to the Hawaiian Islands?" The group was filled with confused expressions. Tang sighed.

"You like these gems right? So, the Hawaiian islands have them to! We'll make portal send you there!" said the enthusiastic spinner.

"How do you know about the portal?" asked Ecco concerned.

"And the crystals?" asked the killer whale.

"We work for the guys in Atlantis! Your dad mentioned your arrival!" Ecco faced the two spinners and felt upset of what he was about to say.

"We only have eighteen overall. Sad isn't it?" he told the spinners. They laughed hysterically.

"Silly Ecco! Ten to start Atlantis gate. Five to start Japanese gate." Ecco felt stupid for underestimating Kitel. Hammer came up to Tang.

"Then what's after that?' he asked. The spinner stopped laughing and shrugged. "Gee, thanks for the answer." Hammer said sarcastically.

"If you feel like going now, feel free to go through the portal anytime!" Wang said. The group nodded and Tang began flipping switches and pushing buttons with his beak and fins. He even tried it with his tail.

"Quit messing around! Oh now your doing it wrong!"

"I'm doing what you told me! So shut it!"

"It's green-blue-red! You idiot!" Tang pulls out a thin square of metal.

"Isn't this what you told me to read?"

"I don't know! I can't read!"

Coral came over to the fighting spinners and gave them the crown. She then gave them a dirty look.

"OPEN IT ALREADY!!!" she orders. Tang pushes a red button and immediately the portal opens. "Thanks for the flowers, but they keep falling off. See ya!" and she storms off first into the gate. Ecco stops Trellia from entering.

"We kind of need someone to keep an eye out for things. Think you can do that?" Trellia didn't even protest. She nodded with a smile and stayed near the two spinners, trying to break up the fight over the control panel.

"You guys can fight…OUTSIDE!!" she yelled. The two slowly swam away from the future dolphin and wave a fin goodbye. "Bring me back a souvenir if you can." Ecco chuckled and charged in.


	12. Welcome to Waikiki!

"Ugh. I think I'm going to be sick." Gagged Shard as he used his tail to hold his lunch. The portal was swirling the gang constantly and viewing different colors in different shapes. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope in an endless whirlpool. Everyone else felt the same as well as getting dizzy and more nauseas.

A white light appeared not far off from where they were. Ecco noticed a shadow moving back and forth inside the light. He sighed in relief.

"Hey! The exit is near!" he exclaimed. He charged off ahead of everyone. Everyone sighed and eye-rolled and chased after their friend. Before they knew it, they went through a blinding light and into a bay of cheerful common dolphins. A Latin tune could be heard from some of the residents.

The area was full of excitement and peaceful. Everyone was in a good mood. Calf's are playing tag. Some adolescent females are dancing to the Latin tune and even the elders are relaxing heavily on the shore trying to reach seashells.

One common dolphin with a necklace of seashells swam beside them. He threw his fins up and smiled.

"Welcome to Waikiki! You must be Ecco and his friends." Ecco nodded.

"And you must be the Hawaiian guy from Atlantis right?" asked Hammer.

"I'm also the pod-leader here. My name's Wiki." replied the common dolphin. Coral swam to the common dolphin with her teeth grinning.

"Can you give us a tour around here Wiki?" she asked with puppy eyes. Wiki smiled and nodded.

"Actually I need a favor to ask you. We're kinda blocked in to the other pods area. Our entrances have been blocked by boulders." the common asked with a pleasant expression.

"What does that have to do with a tour?" Coral asked.

"Well, there's five in all, and they're scattered throughout the bay, so you'll get your tour while doing this task. Plus there's a Guardian crystal in it for you." He swam near a boulder and nudged the top which eventually fell off and revealed an orange crystal. "I'm sure with your whale friend's strength, this shouldn't take long."

Aqua sighed and swam up to the common dolphin ready to go.

"Where's the first one?' the whale asked. Wiki pointed his beak straight ahead of him.

"The other four are around here as well. I only found one." Aqua sighed and swam off. Ecco and the rest followed the whale. They passed dolphin after dolphin who was either dancing or decorating rocks with seashells and colorful fauna.

"Gee. I wonder what's here that's makes this place so-" _Smack! _Aqua gets rammed by a calf who was playing tag. He didn't feel anything, but the calf begins to shake in fear of the whale, who is about ten times his size and more teeth then all of his friends.

"S-S-S-Sorry mister! Are you gonna eat me?' the calf asked shaking harder. Aqua smiled and chuckled.

"Why? You want to? Ask Hammer the shark." He laughed a tad harder.

"Hey! I don't do dolphins! Only fish!" the calf stopped shaking and giggled.

"What's going on around here anyway?" Aqua asked the calf. The young dolphin felt more comfortable and smiled.

"A few days we join up with other pods and have our annual Lotus Flower Festival. It's a week of fun!" he said in excitement. Everyone else seemed to like the idea. Hammer licked his mouth with hunger.

"Thanks kid. What's your name?" the killer whale asked with his friendly tone.

"Sunny." The calf replied. Aqua smiled. He heard a blast of song coming near them. "That's my mom! Bye Aqua" he swam off. Shard appears in front of the orca and stares at him.

"C'mon! The sooner the better! Let's…GO!" he barks at the whale. Aqua blows away the seahorse with a stream of air bubbles.

They continued straight on until they were covered by shade. Finally Ecco noticed a cave and an arch that somehow lead to another place.

"This must be it." Said Ecco to himself. "Okay Aqua." the dolphin gave the okay to let Aqua smash the boulder.

Aqua swam away from the pile of rocks and stretched his fins and head. He then lowered his head and prepared to charge. He bolted from where he started and rammed the boulder with his side, which moved the enormous rock. It fell out of the way making the entrance reopen.

"That's one of them." Hammer said. Ecco lead the party out and followed the trail of Latin singers. There was a small crowd listening to the five dusky dolphins singing their songs. In front of them were five adolescent females twirling and dancing to the rhythm and tempo of the songs. They finished and multiple angler fish lightened up things, since it was late afternoon. Ecco caught up with the lead singer who was behind another arch of rocks.

"Nice songs you play." Ecco said to the dusky dolphin. He smiled with his wrinkles building up on is eyes.

"Thanks young one. You wanted to ask me something?' asked the old male. Ecco nodded and pointed his beak at the large pile of rocks, blocking the second arch entrance. "Oh. I'll move our stuff for you." He moved his rock and shell instruments and swam to the side, out of harms way.

"Why don't you try practicing your beam's at the rocks?" recommended the whale. Ecco nodded and charged up his Normal beam at the blockade. He fires five powered-up shots at the structure which blew up in a purple lighted explosion. There was nothing but rubble remaining, and fish began swimming out, scattering all over the bay.

"This is easy." said Ecco to himself. Not far off were two more next to each other. Coral charged in on the pile of rocks and noticed one that was loose on the bottom.

"Allow me." She said as she tugs on the rock with her fins. The rock popped out, and Coral swims out of the way as the rocks tumble downward, opening the third entrance. Aqua moved another large boulder in the middle of the forth pile, which also fell downward as a forth entrance was re-opened.

"Now…where's that last one?" thought Aqua with a puzzled look on his face. "Maybe it's over…"

"Found it!" said the triumphant Coral. This one wasn't covered with rocks. It was a steel door with a map of islands. Around that were dolphins jumping over hoops and swimming under the arches Ecco and company cleared of boulders. Wiki was next to a small switch that opened the door. He had the crystal ready in his left fin.

"I saw what you did. Here. It's yours." said the common dolphin with a stroke of relief on his face, "Just pull this switch. It hasn't been pulled down for so long, that it won't do go down." Coral gently pulls down on the switch before Aqua and Ecco appeared. Wiki stares at the female dolphin with a jealous look as the steel door opens upwards.

Appearing from the door tens of dusky, common, and bottlenose dolphins charge out in glee as they came into the bay with endless supplies of fish. Wiki faced the now-present Aqua, Ecco, and Hammer, with an ecstatic look on his face.

"Thank you so much. I'll prepare the festival tomorrow. Your all invited! Please…enjoy your stay in Hawaii." He swims off to prepare the Lotus Festival.

"Well that was a thrill." Shard said, feeling bored.

"I rather fight a dragon." Said Aqua who still wanted to see the dragon Coral and Ecco saw. The two dolphins sighed and poked at their whale friend as Shard and Hammer watch with laughter.


	13. Legends of Rock Pt: 1

"Let the festivities begin!" shouted an ecstatic Wiki. As on cue, tens and hundreds of dolphins begin charging out of the arches. They all yell in glee and scatter throughout the large bay playing and talking with the bay-folk. Ecco and company watched the large crowd break apart into hundreds of pieces. Hammer was still looking for a large pool of fish he was hoping for. He licked his teeth with his tongue which sadly was scratched. He sobbed quietly until Shard poked around one of his eyes.

"Sissy" He mumbled to the hammerhead with a smirk. The shark just rolled his rolled eyes and tried to keep his mouth shut from snatching the seahorse. Shard squirmed towards Ecco and lightly poked him with his beak. "so…why are we sitting here?" he asked the star-browed dolphin. Ecco only moved his eye at the seahorse.

"I'm just thinking. I don't know why you're not having fun though." he replied. He turned upside down and sighed. Coral swam next him with a grin, with Aqua behind her.

"We're going site seeing. See ya!" she said happily. Hammer and Shard appeared behind him poking his tail.

"Shard wanted to look around, and he wanted me to make sure he isn't someone's dinner." Ecco nodded and followed the two.

"Might as well tag along. It beats being bored alone" he said to himself.

Meanwhile with Aqua and Coral...

The whale and female dolphin looked around at some of the odd structures of life around the bay. One was an odd stem poking all the way to the surface. Another was a rock that had three extremely large stone starfish. They didn't even had a single crack on them. The two swam over to examine the stone structures and noticed a strange colored dolphin looking at one.

"She's different. I never seen a dolphin look like that." Coral said to herself. Aqua nodded and swam for air.

The dolphin was an indigo color. She had turquoise striped on her side and half her saw-like flippers where turquoise as well, along with her entire dorsal was that color too. She was intrigued by star structure too. Coral swam over and looked up at the stone and noticed something glowing in the middle of starfish. Before she could do anything she was bumped by the unique dolphin.

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone else was here." She said in a sincere tone. Before Coral could say anything back to her she was interrupted by Aqua.

"Hey Coral! Why didn't you wait for me?" he said with a smile. Coral shrugged her fins. She pointed her beak at the center of the three starfish stones.

"There might be Guardian crystals in those stones. Look how they glow. They look like their releasing power!" she said with a worried look. Aqua slightly backed away from her and gave a confused expression.

"How is that possible? And how do you know it's releasing power?" he asked. Again she just shrugged. "That is not a good answer Coral." The whale said with a frustrated look. The unique dolphin swam between the two and smiled.

"Anything I can do to help?" she said with her smile growing larger. Coral faced her and calmed down.

"Could you tell us your name?" she asked pleasantly.

"Kuruka. And yours?" she asks back.

"I'm Coral, and the orca is Aqua." Kuruka handed a flipper and shook with Aqua and Coral's.

"So what or who the Guardian is?" the dolphin asked. Aqua swam in front of her.

"We have a friend that'll explain that later. Ever heard of Ecco? Earth's defender of the future?" he questioned. Kuruka thought for a moment.

"Only heard a few stories. Must be some titan or something with a title like that." She replied. Aqua and Coral chuckled, they both took their new friend to find Ecco who is on the other side of the large bay.

Meanwhile with Ecco, Shard, and Hammer…

"Is that right Wiki?" Ecco asked the common dolphin. Wiki nodded from whatever Ecco asked Wiki.

"Uh-huh. These structures were real from ancient past. Lets see…oh yes it was exactly the Greek era, long ago when Poseidon thought it was neat to have large creatures like starfish as a collection, and so he enlarged such creatures, about fifteen in total." Ecco backed away from the common dolphin in disbelief.

"Your making that up. Aren't you?" questioned Hammer with disgust. Wiki sighed in relief.

"Was it at least a good myth?" he asked hoping to get a good reply. The threesome stared at him with disgust.

"No! Do you have any idea what these things were or are?" Ecco asked the common dolphin with frustration. Wiki shook his beak.

"Sorry Ecco. We only know that if they harvest some-sort of power or energy, they'll come to life." He begins to chuckle. "But the only way that'll happen is if the gifts the children gave to the statues are Guardian crystals." The threesome gulped simultaneously.

"And what would happen if they are Guardian crystals?" Hammer asks a tad frightened.

"They would come to life and attack us all. But relax…with Ecco and Aqua's attacks you can destroy those in seconds. They are made out of very old Greek cement. I know that's true." He said with confidence.

"Maybe we should check them…just in case." Recommended a nervous Hammer. Ecco nodded in agreement.

"C'mon let's go find the others." The seahorse and hammerhead nodded and followed him from behind.


End file.
